I put the silver locket that belonged to my mother onto my bedside table, fingering the little bump where I’d had the chain soldered back together. The other furious rows blurred into each other, but I’d had to work hard to bury that particular one.
I looked out of the window onto the terracotta tiles of the courtyard, forcing myself to imagine the hustle and bustle of sixteenth-century castle life. But despite studying the frescoes, the lovely curves of the arches, the memory I had suffocated, depriving it of air until I could tell myself it had never happened, rose to the surface. I put the locket in the drawer. But it was too late to stop the feelings of that day re-emerging.
Sandro was about four months old. I’d been up all night, my nipples sore and cracked from the relentless routine of feed, scream, feed. Every suck of milk sent a jag of pain through me. Sandro had finally fallen asleep in the Moses basket next to the bed and I collapsed into the pillow, my head fuddled with fatigue, too terrified to drop off in case he woke up again and I’d have to drag myself from a deep dark place of utter exhaustion.
Massimo tiptoed in. Not with a cup of tea, piece of toast or even some bloody cabbage leaves. But with a complaint that we hadn’t had sex for over a week, he ‘had his needs’ and my poor leaking aching body was going to oblige. I’d barely had enough energy to turn over and pull up the duvet, muttering, ‘Not today, I can’t.’
But Massimo had had other ideas.
It astonished me now that I’d had the drive and will to resist him. As I’d struggled against him, he’d ripped off my precious locket, with the picture of my mum, the last one before she died.
My neck twinged as I recalled the chain biting into my neck. I closed my mind to the memory of Sandro waking, as Massimo tried to force himself on me. But even Massimo couldn’t focus on sex against the backdrop of Sandro’s screaming, the shrillness reverberating around the bedroom. He’d rolled off me. ‘Shut that baby up!’
He’d been sorry.
Then.
And hundreds of times since.
I’d believed him. I’d been sure deep down that Massimo loved me; that my lot in life was to support, to anchor this flawed man, to save him from himself, that without me, he’d be rudderless, alone with the demons that made him lash out at the people he loved.
But I couldn’t pretend any more. He didn’t love me.
He loved himself.
And maybe he’d loved Caitlin.
The thought made me nauseous. How had I ended up telling myself some bullshit about where the box had finished up? Convincing myself that he’d decided not to give it to me because the gravy had lumps in it, there’d been a stray sock under the sofa, Sandro had refused to use the potty? Any of a million and one ridiculous reasons why the present he chose for me might not have materialised. But that was the trouble with living with someone like Massimo. Mad bad behaviour became normal, until you lost sight of how people like Maggie and Nico resolved things. The idea of sitting down with Massimo and saying something honest like, ‘You really upset me when you…’ just felt like a line that existed in romantic comedies, not in the unloving, unfunny tale of my life.
I hadn’t asked him what happened to the gold box – or indeed any of the hundreds of other things I didn’t quite grasp – because I was a coward. Far easier to absorb his unpleasantness than to challenge it.
As I walked out into the castle garden, remembering the last holiday we were all together before Caitlin died, little details came back to me, swept in on a tide of self-loathing. Caitlin and Massimo splashing about in the pool, ducking each other like flirtatious teenagers. Caitlin in her bikini showing Massimo some Pilates moves, her long fingers pressing on his stomach. ‘Inner core, Massimo, tuck it in.’ And sitting on the sun loungers side by side, their conversation low and intense, Massimo bathing Caitlin in the full beam of his attention. Not for her the refracted rays of someone else’s spotlight. She was always centre stage, adored by Nico and Francesca and – so it would seem – Massimo.
Had I known? Was it something else I’d forced to the back of my mind, choosing not to see? As soon as Maggie mentioned the contents of the box, it was as though someone had pressed down fifty switches in my head, illuminating my world and shining beams into the cobwebby recesses where memories were smothered and stored.
I tried to imagine tackling him. Sitting at a family dinner under the arches. Rattling my teaspoon on a glass. ‘Anna, Nico, Massimo…I’ve got a little question to ask that hopefully one of you will be able to shed some light on…’
Maggie walked by with Nico. Everything about her was relaxed, her movements fluid and uncensored. No make-up, her hair flowing, frayed denim shorts. She looked every bit as though she was off to Glastonbury. Such a contrast to Caitlin with her crisp nautical T-shirts, her white jeans, her sun visor perched above her ponytail. I’d never have sought Maggie out before I met Massimo. Too scruffy, too unpolished, too straightforward. Even when I had friends, I didn’t have any who didn’t wear lipstick, who often used a carrier bag instead of a handbag. And now, the very things I loved about her meant that we could never be close friends.
I couldn’t risk being tempted to tell the truth.
32
Maggie
Within a few days, I found myself getting used to the good life. I even felt the beginnings of belonging, as though I was quietly taking root, a bit like one of Nico’s ‘easy groundcover plants’ ivying over the sharper, more resistant edges of the family boundaries. Sam seemed to be having a great time, never out of the water. Massimo was the undisputed pool games ringmaster, never running out of energy, shooting Sam up into the air like a rocket, holding a hoop for him to dive through, tipping him off the lilos. I loved the fact Sam finally had some decent male role models, the best of both worlds with Nico’s quiet thoughtfulness and Massimo’s rough and tumble energy. Thank God what made me happy hadn’t made Sam miserable.
And I had high hopes Lara and I would cement our unlikely friendship, especially now I’d trusted her with my big secret. That aside, since we’d been driving together, I figured that suffering the shame of sitting through several sets of traffic lights while horns blared behind entitled me to a bit of good-humoured teasing. I got the sense that of all the qualities her dad had instilled in her, learning to laugh at herself wasn’t in the top twenty. I’d nearly wet myself at breakfast when she’d asked me in all seriousness: ‘Do you think I’m letting Sandro down if I don’t get him a Mandarin tutor?’
I’d just managed to rein in a ‘coffee out of my nose’ moment. Most of my friends were more concerned about whether their kids would manage a GCSE in English. ‘Jesus. Sam’s only just nailed saying, “We were” instead of “We was”, and that’s only because Francesca points it out on a regular basis. We’re just going to have to stick with prawn crackers and sweet and sour as far as our Chinese goes.’